


All Work

by TheBitterSweetBish



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:02:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28010589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBitterSweetBish/pseuds/TheBitterSweetBish
Summary: In 'Death's Door' (S7E10) we see Bobby's memory of a day in the park playing catch with a young Dean.  Later that night John and Bobby share a confrontational phone call.  This little blurb takes a glimpse at what happened on the other end of that call.  (not a John hate fic, if you're looking for John Winchester, kicker of puppies, this is not the fic for you)
Kudos: 6





	All Work

They were some of the best time John could remember. Probably most fathers felt the same. There was something special about watching your son grow, improve in his skills. Potential future victories, the results of heroic, game winning plays, would have their roots all the way back in the early days of playing catch in the yard with dad. It was heady stuff.

There had been too few opportunities with Dean before tragedy had changed the course of their lives, making each memory a cherished one. He had anticipated making similar memories with Sam, but fate had had other plans for the Winchester family.

Their new life had provided different reasons to be proud of Dean. The boy had stepped into his new roles of sorta adult and sometimes soldier with an admirable adaptability, but it wasn't the same. John's dreams of chest swelling moments had been imagined on the game field, not the battlefield, high stakes emotionally, but ultimately nothing more important a few minutes' worth of bragging rights on the line.

Dean had taken to shooting, lock picking, a plethora now essential activities as if he'd been born for it, but these were necessary skills. Too much lay in the balance as to whether Dean and eventually Sam, could perform adequately when the time came. This wasn't a game. It was life or death, **his sons'** lives or deaths.

Seeing Dean bullseye a target couldn't help but bring out the parental pride in him, but there was an element missing to those occasions. In a game, you could bond, have fun, just enjoy one another as father and son.

This was war and that sort of lighthearted exchange had to be replaced with stern demands for even better performance. A mistake when it counted could prove fatal, so mistakes in practice had to be handled accordingly. Reassurances to his son that no one was perfect were appropriate for a missed catch, not for a missed shot. Those required examinations of what had gone wrong and efforts to ensure that it didn't happen again or worse become a habit. He didn't like it. It was just the only realistic way to play the hand they had been dealt.

He knew Bobby had a good point. The boys were kids, not soldiers. What really were the odds that one day off of training was going to tip the scales one way or the other in a critical moment in some unseen future? John had never been willing to take that chance.

That was the real sticking point. Maybe one day off wasn't that big of a deal. In all likelihood, Bobby's detour from the shooting range to the ball field wasn't going to doom Dean to some preventable, grisly fate somewhere down the road, but damn it, that should have been his moment to have. It was yet another painful loss, a reminder of everything that had to be sacrificed. It wasn't even Bobby he was angry with. It was the road they were on, a life that he didn't want, not for himself, and certainly not for his boys, a life where another man had to take his son to the park because he didn't dare to himself.

Hurt and angry he growled into the phone, "You're not his father, Bobby."


End file.
